Sacred Caves - Crystalinks Throughout history, primitive peoples have made use of caves for shelter, burial, or as religious sites. Since items placed in caves are protected from the climate and scavenging animals, which means caves are an archaeological treasure house for learning about indigenous people. Cave paintings are of particular interest. One example is the Great Cave of Niah, in Malaysia which contains evidence of human habitation dating back 40,000 years. The main cave is one of the largest limestone caves in the world. The cave system is an important prehistorical site with human remains dating to 40,000 years ago. Painted Cave has rock paintings dated at 1200 years. The caves are also well known for the birds' nest collection. Caves are also important for geological research because they can reveal details of past climactic conditions in speleothems and sediment layers. The word 'cave' is sometimes a metaphor for the mind, hidden within is sacred knowledge that yearns to be discovered. Caves around the world contain information in various forms about the ancient history of planet Earth as if markers in time.

Hidden within caves we find: Chambers Interdimensional Portals - Indwell and Outwells of Energies - Electromagnetic Energy Vortexes Carlsbad Caverns Carlsbad Caverns National Park is a United States National Park in the Guadalupe Mountains in southeastern New Mexico. The primary attraction of the park is the show cave, Carlsbad Cavern. The park contains over 117 caves. Big Four Ice Caves Big Four Mountain is a mountain in the Cascade Range of Washington, located 21 miles (34 km) east of Granite Falls. The mountain is about 6,180 ft (1,880 m) high. At the bottom of its steep, 4,200 ft (1,300 m) high north face, debris piles form from avalanches and are able to remain there year round because of the continuous shade provided by the mountain. At an elevation between 2,450 ft (750 m) and 1,950 ft (590 m), this ice forms the lowest-elevation glacier in the lower 49 states.

During the summer, snow-melt streams flow beneath the debris piles and cause caves to be formed in the ice. With climate change the ice caves can be dangerous. Woman, 34, Killed in Washington Ice Cave Collapse NBC - July 7, 2015 Authorities recovered the body of a 34-year-old hiker trapped when an ice cave partially collapsed at a popular Washington state forest. The unidentified female victim was found after search teams used small explosives at the Big Four Ice Caves in Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest to dislodge debris and check for ice stability at the cave, the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office said. 27 Amazing Glacial And Ice Caves From Around The World Mogao Caves In China A Tang Dynasty inscription records that the first cave in the Mogao Grottoes was made in 366 A.D. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) listed the Mogao Grottoes on the World Heritage List in 1987. According to archaeologists, it is the greatest and most consummate repository of Buddhist art in the world.

Despite erosion and man-made destruction, the 492 caves are well preserved, with frescoes covering an area of 45,000 square metres, more than 2,000 colored sculptured figures and five wooden eaves overhanging the caves. Ajanta Caves in India The Ajanta Caves in India are 29 rock-cut cave monuments which date from the 2nd century BCE. The caves include paintings and sculptures considered to be masterpieces of both Buddhist religious art (which depict the Jataka tales) as well as frescos which are reminiscent of the Sigiriya paintings in Sri Lanka. The caves were built in two phases starting around 200 BCE, with the second group of caves built around 600 CE. Crystal Cave of Giants in Mexico The Naica Mine of Chihuahua, Mexico, is a working mine that is known for its extraordinary crystals. Naica is a lead, zinc and silver mine in which large voids have been found, containing crystals of selenite (gypsum) as large as 4 feet in diameter and 50 feet long.

The chamber holding these crystals is known as the Crystal Cave of Giants, and is approximately 1000 feet down in the limestone host rock of the mine. Quamran Caves - Dead Sea Scrolls northwest shore of the Dead Sea The settlement of Qumran is 1 km inland from the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. The scrolls were found in eleven caves nearby, between 125m (Cave 4) and 1 km (Cave 1) away. None were found within the settlement, unless it originally encompassed the caves. In the winter of 1946-47, Palestinian Muhammed edh-Dhib and his cousin discovered the caves, and soon afterwards the scrolls. France Cave at Lascaux, France Oldest Petroglyphs Lascaux is a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its cave paintings. The original caves, located near the village of Montignac. They contain some of the earliest known art, dating back to somewhere between 13,000 and 15,000 BCE, or as far back as 25,000 BCE.

Inside France's 25,000-year-old Pech Merle cave , hand stencils surround the famed "Spotted Horses" mural. Spain Cave art: Etchings hailed as 'Iberia's most spectacular' BBC - October 14, 2016 Cave art as much as 14,500 years old has been pronounced "the most spectacular and impressive" ever discovered on the Iberian peninsula. About 50 etchings were found in the Basque town of Lekeitio. They include horses, bison, goats and - in a radical departure from previously discovered Palaeolithic art in the Biscay province - two lions. Some depictions are also much bigger than those found previously - with one horse about 150cm (4ft 11in) long. Watch the Video The El Castillo Cave in Spain -- The refined dating shows these paintings to be far older than anyone thought. Red dots, hand stencils and animal figures represent the oldest examples yet found of cave art in Europe.

The symbols on the walls at 11 Spanish locations, including the World Heritage sites of Altamira, El Castillo and Tito Bustillo have long been recognized for their antiquity. But researchers have now used refined dating techniques to get a more accurate determination of their ages. One motif - a faint red dot - is said to be more than 40,000 years old. - New dating method shows cave art is older: Did Neanderthals do it? MSNBC - June 14, 2012 When archaeologists tried out a new technique to determine the age of Spain's most famous Paleolithic cave paintings, they were surprised to discover that the paintings were thousands of years older than previously thought - so old that it's conceivable they were painted by Neanderthals. The technique just might change the way we think about the paintings, and the way we think about our long-extinct, long-maligned Neanderthal cousins as well. Hand stencils and the outlines of animals dominate "The Panel of Hands" in Spain's El Castillo cave.

One of the stencils has been dated to earlier than 37,300 years ago, and a red disk goes back at least 40,800 years, making them the oldest cave paintings in Europe. The "Corredor de los Puntos" lies within Spain's El Castillo cave. Red disks here have been dated to between 34,000 and 36,000 years ago, and elsewhere in the cave to 40,800 years ago, making them examples of Europe's earliest cave art. Latvia: Gutman's Cave Gutman's Cave is the widest and highest cave in the Baltic countries, located on the Gauja River in the National Park of Sigulda, Latvia. It started forming more than 10 000 years ago when meltwater eroded the sandstone rock after the Ice Age. It is the oldest tourist attraction in Latvia. On the walls of the cave are inscriptions from the 17th century. The legend of the Rose of Turaida began in this cave.

Read more The Gutmana Ala: The Legendary Cave of the Good Man and the Rose of Turaida Ancient Origins - September 10, 2015 The Gutmana Ala, or Gutman's (Good Man's) cave in English, is today located in the Sigulda region of the Gauja National Park in Latvia. Apart from Sigulda, this national park extends over several other regions, including Amata, Cesis Incukins and Ligatne. Within the boundaries of this national park lie a third of all Latvia's natural reserves, as well as over 500 cultural and historical monuments. Despite the richness of the Gauja National Park, the Gutmana Ala is one of the park's most impressive and popular tourist attractions. Germany Oldest Art Even Older: New Dates from Geibenklosterle Cave Show Early Arrival of Modern Humans, Art and Music Science Daily - May 24, 2012 Researchers from Oxford and Tubingen have published new radiocarbon dates from the from Geibenklosterle Cave in Swabian Jura of Southwestern Germany in the Journal of Human Evolution.

The new dates use improved methods to remove contamination and produced ages between began between 42,000 43,000 years ago for start of the Aurignacian, the first culture to produce a wide range of figurative art, music and other key innovations as postulated in the Kulturpumpe Hypothesis. The full spectrum of these innovations were established in the region no later than 40,000 years ago. Africa Tassili n'Ajjer, Sahara Desert, North Africa Sahara rock art is a significant area of archaeological study focusing on the precious treasures carved or painted on the natural rocks found in the central Sahara desert. There are over three thousand sites discovered that have information about Saharan rock art. From the Tibesti massif to the Ahaggar Mountains, the Sahara is an impressive open-air museum containing numerous archaeological sites. Tassili n'Ajjer (meaning "Plateau of the Rivers") is noted for its prehistoric rock art and other ancient archaeological sites, dating from Neolithic times when the local climate was much moister, with savannah rather than desert.

The art depicts herds of cattle, large wild animals including crocodiles, and human activities such as hunting and dancing. The art has strong stylistic links to the pre-Nguni Art of South Africa and the region, executed in caves by the San Peoples before the year 1200 BCE. The range's exceptional density of rock art paintings-pictograms and engravings-petroglyphs, and the presence of many prehistoric vestiges, are remarkable testimonies to Neolithic prehistory. From 10,000 BCE to the first centuries CE, successive peoples left many archaeological remains, habitations, burial mounds and enclosures which have yielded abundant lithic and ceramic material. However, it is the rock art (engravings and paintings) that have made Tassili world famous as from 1933, the date of its discovery. 15,000 petroglyphs have been identified to date. Some of the painting have bizarre depictions of what appear to be spacemen wearing suits, visors, and helmets. resembling modern day astronauts.

This takes us to the west African tribe - the Dogon whose legends say they were guided to the area from another part of Africa that was drying up - by fish gods called the Nommo who came in huge ships from the sky. Earliest Oil Paintings Found in Famed Afghan Caves National Geographic - February 7, 2008 Buddhist murals from Afghanistan's famed Bamiyan caves are the world's earliest known oil paintings, according to a new chemical analysis. (See photos of the paintings and the cliffs that housed them.) The finds, dated to around the 7th century A.D., predate the origins of similar sophisticated painting techniques in medieval Europe and the Mediterranean by more than a hundred years. Argentina Hand Stencils Through Time National Geographic - June 26, 2009 Clusters of hand stencils dating back 2,500 years cover the walls of Argentina's Cueva de las Manos -- Cave of the Hands in Patagonia. Clusters of hand stencils dating back 2,500 years cover the walls of Argentina's Cueva de las Manos in Patagonia.

Prehistoric handprints and stencils span all continents and began appearing on rock walls around the world at least 30,000 years ago. Shanidar Cave in Iraq Iraq: The Skeletons of Shanidar Cave Smithsonian - March 2010 1n 1856, laborers working in a limestone quarry in the Neander Valley near Dusseldorf, Germany, dug up some unusual-looking bones. Subsequent study revealed that they belonged to a previously unknown species of humans, similar to, but distinct from our own species, Homo sapiens. The newly discovered hominid was named Neanderthal - thal is Old German for valley - and has fascinated anthropologists ever since. It was first thought that Neanderthals may have resembled apes - with stooped posture and bent knees - more closely than modern humans.

Then, in the 1950s, Smithsonian anthropologist Ralph Solecki, a team from Columbia University and Kurdish workers unearthed the fossilized bones of eight adult and two infant Neanderthal skeletons - spanning burials from 65,000 to 35,000 years ago -at a site known as the Shanidar cave, in the Kurdistan area of northern Iraq. The discovery changed our understanding of Neanderthals. Iraq The Hidden Story Google Videos (48:40) Cave of Tayos in Ecuador The Cave of Tayos is a natural cave located on the eastern slopes of the Andes mountains in the Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador. The cave was popularized by Erich von Daniken's 1973 book The Gold of the Gods, in which he wrote that Juan Moricz had claimed to have explored Cueva de los Tayos in 1969 and discovered mounds of gold, unusual sculptures and a metallic library. These items were said to be located within artificial tunnels that had been created by a lost civilization with help from extraterrestrial beings.

Von Daniken had previously stirred public imagination by suggesting that extraterrestrials were involved in ancient civilizations in his popular book Chariots of the Gods. As a result of the claims published in von Daniken's book, an investigation of Cueva de los Tayos was organized by Stan Hall from Britain in 1976. One of the largest and most expensive cave explorations ever undertaken, the expedition included over a hundred people, including experts in a variety of fields, British and Ecuadorian military personnel, a film crew, and former astronaut Neil Armstrong. The team also included eight experienced British cavers who thoroughly explored the cave and conducted an accurate survey to produce a detailed map of the cave. There was no evidence of Von Daniken's more exotic claims, although some physical features of the cave did approximate his descriptions and some items of zoological, botanical and archaeological interest were found. In the 20th century, a Roman Catholic missionary named Father Carlo Crespi helped the local Indians, the Shuar culture, who gave him some unique gifts that often took the form of elaborately carved artifacts some made of gold or other precious metals. Many of these artifacts feature elaborate carvings and symbols not know to be associated with the Shuar people.

One of the presents was metal tablet with 36 symbols that no one could translate. In 1991, an Ecuadorian manned named Patronio Jaramillo who claimed to have entered the cave through a secret entrance back in 1946 as a teenage boy. He claimed that he had to dive into the water, swim through an underwater tunnel then came up. He described wandering through chamber after chamber of ancient relics, including a vast room of books made from gold and other metals - books with unrecognizable writing possibly like those in Father Crespi's collection - symbols of unknown origin. Jaramillo died before he could show anyone where the cave was located. Underground World of Xibalba Xibalba , roughly translated as "place of fear", is the name of the underworld in Maya mythology, ruled by the Maya death gods and their helpers. In 16th-century Verapaz, the entrance to Xibalba was traditionally held to be a cave in the vicinity of Coban, Guatemala. According to some of the K'iche' Maya presently living in the vicinity, the area is still associated with death. Cave systems in nearby Belize have also been referred to as the entrance to Xibalba.

Another physical incarnation of the road to Xibalba as viewed by the K'iche' is the dark rift which is visible in the Milky Way. Blue Holes Wikipedia A blue hole is a cave (inland) or underwater sinkhole. They are also called vertical caves. There are many different blue holes located around the world, typically in low-lying coastal regions. The best known examples can be found in Belize, the Bahamas, Guam, Australia (in the Great Barrier Reef), and Egypt (in the Red Sea). Life Beyond Earth? Underwater Caves in Bahamas Could Give Clues Science Daily - January 27, 2012 Discoveries made in some underwater caves by Texas &M University at Galveston researchers in the Bahamas could provide clues about how ocean life formed on Earth millions of years ago, and perhaps give hints of what types of marine life could be found on distant planets and moons.

Tom Iliffe, professor of marine biology at the Texas A&M-Galveston campus, and graduate student Brett Gonzalez of Trabuco Canyon, Calif., examined three "blue holes" in the Bahamas and found that layers of bacterial microbes exists in all three, but each cave had specialized forms of such life and at different depths, suggesting that microbial life in such caves is continually adapting to changes in available light, water chemistry and food sources. "Blue holes" are so named because from an aerial view, they appear circular in shape with different shades of blue in and around their entrances. There are estimated to be more than 1,000 such caves in the Bahamas, the largest concentration of blue holes in the world. In the News ... Forensic technique reveals sex of prehistoric hand stencil artists PhysOrg - December 13, 2016 Prehistoric ancestors creating human hand stencils in caves 40,000 years ago can now be identified as male or female with more than 90% accuracy.

Techniques used in modern forensics were applied to the stencils � found frequently alongside Paleolithic cave art at sites around the world - as part of a collaborative research project between biologists, anthropologists and archaeologists. Hand stencils are created by blowing, spitting or stippling pigment onto a hand while it is held against a rock surface, leaving a negative impression on the rock in the shape of the hand. Stencils found in Sulawesi, Indonesia have been dated back 40,000 years, and those discovered in Europe are estimated to be around 37,000 years old, a period known as the Upper Paleolithic. World's deepest underwater cave found in the Czech Republic PhysOrg - September 30, 2016 A team of explorers say they've discovered that a cave in the eastern Czech Republic is the world's deepest flooded fissure, going at least 404 meters (1,325 feet) deep.

Polish explorer Krzysztof Starnawski, who led the team, told The Associated Press on Friday that he felt like a "Columbus of the 21th century" to have made the discovery near the Czech town of Hranice. Starnawski, 48, determined that the flooded limestone Hranicka Propast, or Hranice Abyss, which divers, including him, have explored for decades in its upper parts, was at least 404 meters deep. He scuba dived to a narrow slot in the rock formation at 200 meters down, then sent a remotely operated underwater robot, or ROV, that went to the depth of 404 meters, or the length of its cord, but still did not hit the bottom. Anthropologist Suggests that Tiny Stone Age Cave Handprints Are Not Actually Human Hands Ancient Origins - March 2, 2016 The 6,000-8,000-year-old cave paintings at the Wadi Suri II site in Egypt have been a source of interest since they were discovered in 2002.

Although there are thousands of paintings that include a variety of images, a special interest has been given to the tiny "handprints" that were once thought to have been made by infants. Where Is the World's Deepest Cave? Live Science - December 23, 2015 Veteran cave explorer Bill Stone has announced that in 2017, he'll lead an expedition into the Cheve Cave system, a sprawling underground complex in the Oaxaca region of Mexico, which water flow suggests may descend nearly 1.6 miles into the Earth. If that turns out to be true, Cheve would earn the title of the world's deepest cave, taking away the distinction currently held by Krubera Cave in the Western Caucasus mountains in Georgia, which is about 1.36 miles deep. But scientists say that even if Cheve sets a new depth record, it may not last. Geological data leads them to believe there are numerous undiscovered caves across the globe, and that some of of those subterranean passageways may reach vastly deeper into the planet. Given the limits of the technology used for detection, though, finding those caves may be a challenge, and exploring them even more so.

Cave paintings change ideas about the origin of art BBC - October 8, 2014 The artworks are in a rural area on the Indonesian Island of Sulawesi. Until now, paintings this old had been confirmed in caves only in Western Europe. Researchers tell the journal Nature that the Indonesian discovery transforms ideas about how humans first developed the ability to produce art. Australian and Indonesian scientists have dated layers of stalactite-like growths that have formed over colored outlines of human hands. Early artists made them by carefully blowing paint around hands that were pressed tightly against the cave walls and ceilings. The oldest is at least 40,000 years old. Icicles Galore: Visitors Flock to Apostle Islands' Frozen Ice Caves BBC - February 4, 2014 For the first time in five years, intrepid visitors to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore can make the icy trek along the frozen waters of Lake Superior to glimpse the millions of icicles - some several stories tall - that embellish the region's incredible ice caves. The Apostle Islands National Lakeshore is made up of 22 islands in Lake Superior, located off the coast of northern Wisconsin.

The area boasts some of the most impressive sea caves in the Great Lakes region, and during warmer months, visitors can paddle along the sculpted shorelines and navigate through the caves' scenic passageways and arched chambers. But, during the winter, witnessing the caves' icy transformation is much trickier. This year, however, the ice on Lake Superior is thick enough for people to reach the ice caves - for the first time since 2009, according to officials at the U.S. Department of the Interior. Killer Cave May Have Inspired Myth of Hades Live Science - November 29, 2012 A giant cave that might have helped serve as the inspiration for the mythic ancient Greek underworld Hades once housed hundreds of people, potentially making it one of the oldest and most important prehistoric villages in Europe before it collapsed and killed everyone inside, researchers say. The complex settlement seen in this cave suggests, along with other sites from about the same time, that early prehistoric Europe may have been more complex than previously thought.

The cave, located in southern Greece and discovered in 1958, is called Alepotrypa, which means "foxhole." Caves Reveal Picture of Ancient Winters Live Science - November 29, 2012 Scientists have found a stalagmite in an Oregon cave that tells the story of thousands of winters in the Pacific Northwest. Most other ways of estimating past climate, like tree ring data, only tell us about summers, when plants are growing. But understanding ancient winters is also important for regions like western North America, where chilly conditions are critical for determining water resources. For their study, Ersek and his colleagues examined a stalagmite that started forming 13,000 years ago in a cavern in what is now Oregon Caves National Monument. During the region's damp winters, water from the ground seeped through the cave's ceiling and trickled onto the floor, with the drips slowly forming the stalagmite over time.

8 Amazing Caves Around the World Live Science - October 6, 2010 Photos and Text Dominican Republic: Clues to Caribbean's earliest inhabitants PhysOrg - August 18, 2009 A prehistoric water-filled cave in the Dominican Republic has become a "treasure trove" with the announcement by Indiana University archaeologists of the discovery of stone tools, a small primate skull in remarkable condition, and the claws, jawbone and other bones of several species of sloths. Stone tools, rare animal bones discovered -- clues to Caribbean's earliest inhabitants World's Biggest Cave Found in Vietnam National Geographic - July 24, 2009 A British caver wades through Vietnam's Son Doong cave, Earth's largest known cave passage, according to a survey team. A massive cave recently uncovered in a remote Vietnamese jungle is the largest single cave passage yet found, a new survey shows. At 262-by-262 feet (80-by-80 meters) in most places, the Son Doong cave beats out the previous world-record holder, Deer Cave in the Malaysian section of the island of Borneo.

Deer Cave is no less than 300-by-300 feet (91-by-91 meters), but it's only about a mile (1.6 kilometers) long. By contrast, explorers walked 2.8 miles (4.5 kilometers) into Son Doong, in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, before being blocked by seasonal floodwaters - and they think that the passage is even longer. In addition, for a couple of miles Son Doong reaches more than 460-by-460 feet (140-by-140 meters), said Adam Spillane, a member of the British Cave Research Association expedition that explored the massive cavern. Spillane was in the first of two groups to enter the cave. His team followed the passage as far as a 46-foot-high (14-meter-high) wall.

Australia: Cave Painting Depicts Extinct Marsupial Lion Live Science - May 11, 2009 Modern Australia lacks big land predators, but until about 30,000 years ago, the continent was ruled by Thylacoleo carnifex, the marsupial "lion." Several well-preserved skeletons of the leopard-size beast have been found. Now, a newly discovered cave painting offers a glimpse of the animal's external appearance. Hawaiian Makauwahi Cave Reveals Ancient Secrets National Geographic - October 25, 2008 This may be the richest fossil site in the entire Pacific Island region, loaded with bird and fish bones and ancient Polynesian artifacts Gigantic River Cave Revealed in Laos National Geographic - October 20, 2008 A cave explorer stands before an imposing stalagmite made of mineral deposits near an entrance to the Xe Bang Fai River cave in central Laos. An expedition in February 2008, co-led by veteran caver John Pollack, comprehensively mapped and photographed the 5.9-mile (9.5-kilometer) length of the little-known cavern for the first time.

Oldest Skeleton in Americas Found in Underwater Cave? National Geographic - September 3, 2008 A labyrinth filled with stone temples and pyramids in 14 caves - some underwater - have been uncovered on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, archaeologists announced last week. The discovery has experts wondering whether Maya legend inspired the construction of the underground complex - or vice versa. Portal to Maya Underworld Found in Mexico? National Geographic - August 22, 2008 Mexican archeologists have discovered a maze of stone temples in underground caves, some submerged in water and containing human bones, which ancient Mayans believed was a portal where dead souls entered the underworld. Clad in scuba gear and edging through narrow tunnels, researchers discovered the stone ruins of eleven sacred temples and what could be the remains of human sacrifices at the site in the Yucatan Peninsula. Archeologists say Mayans believed the underground complex of water-filled caves leading into dry chambers -- including an underground road stretching some 330 feet -- was the path to a mythical underworld, known as Xibalba .

According to an ancient Mayan scripture, the Popol Vuh , the route was filled with obstacles, including rivers filled with scorpions, blood and pus and houses shrouded in darkness or swarming with shrieking bats, Guillermo de Anda, one of the lead investigators at the site. "The souls of the dead followed a mythical dog who could see at night," de Anda said. Excavations over the past five months in the Yucatan caves revealed stone carvings and pottery left for the dead. "They believed that this place was the entrance to Xibalba. That is why we have found the offerings there," de Anda said. The Mayans built soaring pyramids and elaborate palaces in Central America and southern Mexico before mysteriously abandoning their cities around 900 A.D. They described the torturous journey to Xibalba in the Popul Vuh sacred text, originally written in hieroglyphic script on long scrolls and later transcribed by Spanish conquerors. "It is very likely this area was protected as a sacred depository for the dead or for the passage of their souls," said de Anda, whose team has found ceramic offerings along with bones in some temples.

Different Mayan groups who inhabited southern Mexico and northern Guatemala and Belize had their own entrances to the underworld which archeologists have discovered at other sites, almost always in cave systems buried deep in the jungle. In the Yucatan site they have found one 1,900-year-old ceramic vase, but most of the artifacts date back to between 700 and 850 A.D. "These sacred tunnels and caves were natural temples and annexes to temples on the surface," said de Anda. Chile: Incredible Discoveries Made in Remote Caves Live Science - July 31, 2008 Scientists exploring caves in the bone-dry and mostly barren Atacama Desert in Chile stumbled upon a totally unexpected discovery this week: water. They also found hundreds of thousands of animal bones in a cave, possibly evidence of some prehistoric human activity. The findings are preliminary and have not been analyzed. Cavers Chart "Snowy" Crystal River in New Mexico National Geographic - July 24, 2008 John McLean and a fellow caver walk along a massive mineral formation in Fort Stanton Cave in southwestern New Mexico during an expedition in early July.

The odd formation called Snowy River is actually an intricate crust of tiny calcite crystals and spans a distance of at least four miles (six kilometers), although the exact length is still unknown. The surveyors from the Fort Stanton Cave Study Project added several thousand feet to the measurement. Stone Age Art Caves May Have Been Concert Halls National Geographic - July 3, 2008 Prehistoric peoples chose places of natural resonant sound to draw their famed cave sketches, according to new analyses of paleolithic caves in France. In at least ten locations, drawings of horses, bison, and mammoths seem to match locations that focus, amplify, and transform the sounds of human voices and musical instruments. Cave Men Loved to Sing Live Science - July 3, 2008 Ancient hunters painted the sections of their cave dwellings where singing, humming and music sounded best, a new study suggests. Analyzing the famous, ochre-splashed cave walls of France, the most densely painted areas were also those with the best acoustics, the scientists found. Humming into some bends in the wall even produced sounds mimicking the animals painted there.

The Upper Paleolithic people responsible for the paintings had likely fine-tuned their hearing to recognize the sound qualities in certain parts of the cave and chose to do their artwork there as a kind of landmark, perhaps as part of a singing ritual Earliest Oil Paintings Discovered Live Science - April 22, 2008 Oil paintings have been found in caves behind the two ancient colossal Buddha statues destroyed in 2001 by the Taliban, suggesting that Asians - not Europeans - were the first to invent oil painting Found! World's oldest caves News in Science - July 26, 2006 The Jenolan caves west of Sydney date back some 340 million years, making them the oldest known open caves in the world, Australian geologists say. The oldest previous dating for an open cave was around 90 million years. In geological terms, 340 million years is a very long time. To put it into context, the Blue Mountains began to form 100 million years ago; dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago, and Tasmania was joined to the mainland as recently as 10,000 years ago.

The discovery opens the possibility that there could be evidence of other ancient geological events in the caves that scientists haven't looked for yet. For example, the researchers think the clay in the cave was formed when volcanic ash entered. Catacomb Find Boosts Early Christian-Jewish Ties National Geographic - July 20, 2005 The word catacomb comes from Greek kata kumbas (L. ad catacumbas), "near the low place" and originally it meant a certain burial district in Rome. It can refer to any network of caves, grottos, or subterranean place that is used for the burial of the dead, or it can refer to a specific underground burial place. There are also catacomb-like burial chambers in Anatolia, Turkey; in Susa, North Africa; in Naples, Italy; in Syracuse, Italy; Trier, Germany; Kiev, Ukraine. Capuchin catacombs of Palermo, Sicily were used as late as 1920s. In Ukraine and Russia, catacomb (used in the local languages' plural katakomby) also refers to the network of abandoned caves and tunnels earlier used to mine stone, especially limestone.

Such catacombs are situated in Crimea and the Black Sea coast of these two countries. The most famous are catacombs beneath Odessa and Ajimushkay, Crimea, Ukraine. They served as bases for Soviet World War II guerillas. Ajimushkay catacombs hosted about 10.000 fighters and refugees. Many of them died and were buried there, and memorials and museums were later established (it is now a territory of Kerch city). Read More The Dordogne, France: Lascaux's Prehistoric Cave Paintings - YouTube The Dordogne, France: Lascaux's Prehistoric Cave Paintings Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. The interactive transcript could not be loaded. Loading... Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.

Uploaded on Oct 27, 2010 More info about travel to France: From about 18,000 to 10,000 b.c., long before Stonehenge and the pyramids, back when mammoths and saber-toothed cats still roamed the earth, prehistoric people painted deep inside caves in what is today the Dordogne region of France. These cave paintings are huge and sophisticated projects executed by artists and supported by an impressive culture — the Magdalenians. At , you'll find money-saving travel tips, small-group tours, guidebooks, TV shows, radio programs, podcasts, and more on this destination. Category Prehistoric Cave-art. ( Link to Full Aritcle ) The first real claim for the existence of Palaeolithic cave art was that made in 1880 for the Spanish cave of Altamira by a local landowner, de Sautuola. His views were treated with scepticism by the archaeological establishment, because nothing similar had previously been reported, and almost all known portable art had come from France.

The rejection of Altamira persisted for twenty years until a breakthrough was made at the cave of La Mouthe (Dordogne) where, in 1895, the removal of some fill had exposed an unknown gallery, the walls of which had engravings including a bison figure. Because of Palaeolithic deposits in the blocking fill, it was clear that the pictures must be ancient. Finally, in 1901, engravings were found in the cave of Les Combarelles (Dordogne) and paintings in the nearby cave of Font de Gaume. In 1902 the existence of cave art was officially recognized by the archaeological establishment. The Distribution of European Cave-art. The distribution of cave art (art pariï¿½tal) is equally patchy, though it is most abundant in areas that are also rich in decorated objects: the Pï¿½rigord, the French Pyrenees, and Cantabrian Spain. Palaeolithic decorated caves are found from Portugal and the very south of Spain to the north of France. Traces have been found in southwest Germany, and there are concentrations in Italy and Sicily. A handful of caves are also known in Yugoslavia, Romania, and Russia.

The current total for Eurasia is about 280 sites. Some contain only one or a few figures on the walls, whereas others like Lascaux or Les Trois Frï¿½res have hundreds. Distribution of primary Palaeolithic cave-art locations in Eurasia. In recent years it has become apparent that Palaeolithic people also produced rock art in the open air, where it has survived in exceptional circumstances: Six sites have so far been found in Spain, Portugal, and the French Pyrenees with engravings that are Palaeolithic in style. So cave art is not typical of the period; caves are merely the places where most art has survived. What Materials did they use? The range of colours Palaeolithic man found in the natural world is quite remarkable ï¿½ reds in the form of iron ore, blacks in the form of charcoal or manganese, yellows from iron oxide and whites from chalk or even burned bone or shell. Clay ochre too provided some basic colours. The artists displayed incredible ingenuity in applying these pigments to their pictures. At Lascaux, for instance, hundreds of rudimentary pigment crayons were discovered scattered around the floor.

Analysis of some of these has revealed that artists used recipes to prepare them, combining the raw colour with talc or feldspar to increase their bulk, and adding animal and plant oils to bind the materials. (4) Analysis of samples of pigment from Lascaux revealed scarce manganese oxide minerals, including groutite, hausmannite, and manganite. Because there are no known deposits of these minerals in the area, more distant origins and trade-routes are inferred. The nearest modern known Mn-rich province from Lascaux is the Pyrenees, which is 250 km from the Dordoigne area. (7) The early dates attributed to these very specific oxides, and their common use in adornment and covering the dead in funerary rituals worldwide make it a reasonable speculation that the origins of mining are linked in with the need for pigment. The Mystery of La Marche. (15,000 B.P.) Hundreds of beautifully engraved and painted human heads and faces were discovered on slates carefully placed so as to cover the floor of the cave at La Marche. Just to make the discovery even more unique, several of the sketches include representations of clothing.

Some of the human heads and faces discovered on slates on the floor at La Marche , France. Cave-art and Astronomy: Lascaux Cave. These drawings are over 17,000 years old. They are suggested to have astronomical relevance. At Lascaux, sockets in the walls show that a scaffold system was used for painting the ceiling drawings. Lascaux, France. (Left) Pleiades and Taurus, (Right) Suggested Lunar Count (3). Article: Lascaux Under Threat. 'The cave has been under attack since 1998 from mould, fungi and bacteria. A new air conditioning system put into place in 2000 involved many workers coming in and out of the cave and it is believed that they did not properly disinfect their shoes upon entering, thereby bringing a common local mould into the cave. Authorities began spraying massive doses of antibiotics and fungicides in an effort to stop the rapidly spreading organisms. The foreign organisms continued to advance so most of the air conditioning system was shut down raising the temperature of the cave. In 2001, authorities aggressively poured quicklime over the floor of the cave in an effort to stop the fungus.

Compresses soaked in a mixture of fungicides and antibiotics were then applied directly on the paintings. By 2002, the fungi and mould retreated, but the bacteria were still causing large dark spots to grow in the cave. An invasive and highly labour intensive, mechanical removal treatment was then tried. This involved the removal of the bacteria's roots and proved to be damaging because crews were constantly inside physically removing the spots. Furthermore, the brown bacterial spots that remain are highly visible. By 2006, colonies of black spots, some as large as human hands, were quickly proliferating, spreading over painted and unpainted surfaces. The spots have yet to be identified by a microbiologist. Some of the paintings are in critical condition and colour tones are fading. The cave, in addition, is currently very wet and water can be seen running over the face of paintings. The limestone which gave the cave a remarkable brilliance, has turned grey. Current managers have found no treatment and the spots continue to spread'. Pleiades and the Taurus Constellation. Research into the prominence of clusters of seven dots alongside images of Auroch's in European cave-art has led to the suggestion that they may represent the first indications of constellations.

(5) The heliacal rising of Pleiades was one of the most important celestial markers after the moon to prehistoric people around the world. It represented the beginning of the new-year and of the agricultural season. Markings on bones, stones and paintings on cave walls have shown that the sky was probably used for orientating in time and space. As well as Lascaux, a panel in the cave of La-Tete-du-Lion, France c 21,000 BP) also has a combination of Auroch (Bull-Aldebaran) and seven dots (Pleiades). In addition, at both sites, the eye of the bovine marks the position of Aldebaran, the primary star in the Taurus constellation. Palaeolithic Writing: A survey of cave-symbols has highlighted the appearance of 26 symbols which appear to repeat themselves around the Palaeolithic world. Article; New Scientist. (February 17th, 2010) Chauvet Cave and it's Palaeolithic art. The most famous of the paintings is the group of trotting horses, or the two rhinoceros in a bad mood, or even the depiction of wild cattle.

What is generally ignored by the art critics who manage to enter the cave system are the semi circles, lines and zigzag signs marked on the same walls - they have mostly been ignored. Until now. Two students have proposed these signs are actually symbols - not doodles by idle hands, and they form a written 'code' that is akin to an early form of transmitting information. It seems the Palaeolithic people are sending us a message - but what does it mean? Alas, the students don't know - or the archaeologists, anthropologists, and anyone else, it seems. The students come from the University of Victoria on Vancouver Island and they have compled a comprehensive database of all recorded cave signs from 146 sites in France covering 25,000 years of time - from 35,000-10,000BC. It seems that 26 signs, all drawn in the same style, appear again and again at different sites. Some of them are quite simple brush strokes, such as straight lines, circles, semi-circles and triangles. Others are more complex - such as the tusks of mammoth (without a body).

This is the kind of thing developed much later in the pictographic languages, it is suggested, and evolved into abstract symbols. Some signs appear repeatedly in pairs as in for example hands, or dots, fingerplanting and thumb stencils. The symbols, it is now realised, might represent a rudimentary language - they are telling us something (see also Van Pezinger and Nowell in Antiquity and in The Journal of Human Evolution). The research didn't end there however as they tried to date and track the symbols - lines, dots, love heart shapes, kidney shapes, ladder shapes, and the spiral for example. The spiral only appeared in 2 out of the 146 locations which surprised them as in the Holocene era it became a common motif. Likewise, the zig zag symbol appeared very late in the sequence (in the Palaeolithic) but once again is a common Holocene symbol (on pottery for example, or at Newgrange and other megalithic monuments). However, three quarters of the signs as defined by Petzinger and Nowell occur from the earliest point (after 35,000BC).

In other words, the signs were already established at that point in time - with no evidence of a transition phase (a building process as different signs were added to the collection) and therefore they argue, quite realistically, the signs have an origin before 35,000BC - and before the arrival of modern humans in Europe (expect a lot of resistance to this idea). Of course, there could be a catastrophic reason for a sudden emergence of such symbols around 35,000BC - and they may in fact be describing some unusual events they experienced. Similar symbols turn up in Australia and southern Africa and it might be argued that early human migrants brought them Out of Africa. The race is on to interpret the meaning behind the signs. Erotic Cave-art: There is apparently little cave-art concerned with reproduction or fertility in cave-art. However on occasion on can find painted on the walls of caves in Europe, illustrations of the Palaeolithic sexuality as seen through the following images: La Marche , France. One of several 'erotic' drawings discovered there. These examples of Palaeolithic 'vulva' art are only a couple of several found associated with European cave-art.

The image on the right is from Chauvet cave in France. It has a feline on one side, and a bull on the other. The two animals combine to create the image of a female vulva.. These three women are called the 'Angles sur l'Anglin', France. (Iakovleva, Pinï¿½on 1997, fig. 162-169). Reclining female nude, cave wall engraving, The Dordogne, France, c. 12,000 B.C. Reclining female nude, cave wall engraving, La Magdelaine Cave, France, c. 15,000-10,000 B.C. Palaeo-acoustic Art.: The study of Palaeo-acoustics has revealed that several ancient structures were built so as to incorporate acoustic phenomena in their design. Examples such as the Hypogeum in Malta, and the Mayan Temples at Chitzen Itza demonstrate that this science was well recognised and understood in Neolithic times but remarkably, this same effect was already being initiated at several cave systems in Palaeolithic Europe as the following articles demonstrate: Article: (New Scientist, p.

14, November 28, 1992) - 'The Acoustics Of Rock Art' '"..S. Waller has visited rock art sites in Europe, North America, and Australia. Standing well back from the painted walls, he claps or creates percussion sounds, and records the echo's bouncing back. It turns out, that rock art seems to be placed intentionally where echo's are not only unusually loud but are also related to the pictured subject matter. Where hoofed animals are depicted, one easily evokes echo's of a running herd. If a person is drawn, the echo's of voices seem to emanate from the picture itself! "At open air sites with paintings, Waller found that echo's reverberate on average at a level 8 decibels above the level of the background. At sites without art the average was 3 decibels. In deep caves such as Lascaux and Font-de-Gaume in France, echo's in painted chambers produce sound levels of between 23 and 31 decibels. Deep cave walls painted with cats produce sounds from about 1 to 7 decibels.

In contrast, surfaces without paint are 'totally flat'." Three-dimensional Palaeolithic Art: Left: One of several 3-dimensional Buffalo at Altamira , Spain, and Right: Hand and horse at Chauvet in France. Note the use of the rock outcrop at Peche Merle, France. Only 18 sites of sculptures are known in France (6). At Montespan in France (c. 20,000 BP), a three-dimensional bear was formed out of a whopping 700 kg of the stuff. Sometimes the natural contours and features of a cave, rock or wall ï¿½ stalagmites or other mineral formations ï¿½ would be used to accentuate and augment images (most often animalsï¿½ genitals). Carvings of Horses and Bison. L'Abri-du-Cap-Blanc, France. 15,000 BP. List of countries in Europe in alphabetical order Best Travel Places List of countries in Europe Europe is a unique continent, which is not surrounded by water from all directions, and has an overland border with the neighbouring Asia.

Physiographically, it occupies the northwestern part of the large landmass known as Eurasia and surrounded from the north by the Arctic Ocean, from the west by the Atlantic Ocean, from the south by the Mediterranean Sea, and from the southeast by the Black Sea. Definition of correct border between two continents was a big question for geographers and politicians. Nowadays it is commonly delineated by the Ural Mountains in Russia, the Caspian Sea and Caucasus Mountains. Totally now Europe includes 51 independent states. Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey are the transcontinental countries, partially located in both Europe and Asia. Armenia and Cyprus politically are considered European countries, though geographically they are located in the West Asia territory. Europe's largest country is Russia (37% of total continent area) and the smallest one is Vatican City, which occupies only a small area in the center of Rome. The most visited travel destination in this region is France with its capital Paris as the best place of interest, followed by Spain, Italy, United Kingdom and Germany. Alphabetical list of countries in Europe A

Question: Which European country contains six of the world's deepest caves?
Answer: FRANCE